This is hate, folks. It’s not religious faith. It’s hatred rooted in ignorance and fanaticism. It’s no different from the hatred of Jews that motivated 2,000 years of persecution and pogroms. It’s no different from the hatred based on skin color that motivated white Americans who lynched, burned, beat up, and subjugated black Americans for centuries — long before black Americans were considered Americans.

Imagine feeling this way toward an entire class of human beings, every single day of your life. It must be like what a really bad case of food poisoning feels like.